In its latest edition, Swedish publication Vecko-Revyn has a competition where three lucky winners will get an injection of Restylane, a gel that is used in lip sculpting. This highly controversial competition did not sit well with readers, in part due to the magazine’s leading standing with young girls. And after being critized in some of the largest dailies, Vecko-Revyn’s chief editor Charlotta Gustafsson today wrote an article in Expressen where she said the competition was a mistake, but that they will still go through with it. She claims that the majority of their readers are over 20 and mature enough to make their own choices about different beauty treatments.

But a journalist at Östgöta Correspondenten had this argument with Gustafsson in December 2004 and bothered to investigate her claims. According to Linn Rittmalm-Glimne, the Orvesto survey only asks respondents aged between 15 and 79 (see yourself here). This means that no girls (or boys) under the age of 15 are asked if they read Vecko-Revyn. If 33% of all readers are between 15 and 19, and 67% between 20 and 79, there’s a pretty good chance that a significant number of very young readers are missing from the survey. How convenient. Especially since Sifo had told Rittmalm-Glimne that the response rate in the age group 15-19 is very low, or 52%, so the results may not be very reliable.

Here is a graph of Vecko-Revyn’s reach in different age groups (thousands of readers).

The TV news show Rapport had asked a number of retailers what age group buys Vecko-Revyn, and the response was “12 to 18”. This might not have any statistical relevance but adds to the suspicion that their readers are younger than they claim.